The Afghan aid juggernaut

In the 10 years since the invasion of Afghanistan, foreign donors — including Canada — have spent more than US$57-billion in aid there. But what kind of country is Canada leaving behind?

As the recipient of the 2011 Michener-Deacon fellowship for public service journalism, which underwrote her research, Jane Armstrong spent seven weeks in Afghanistan this summer assessing what Canada’s aid contribution has achieved. This is the first part of the resulting four-day series.

By Jane Armstrong

KABUL • The Taliban was driven from Afghanistan a decade ago but the Afghan capital is still occupied.

The new elite live inside walled compounds, topped with razor wire. When they do venture out to work or play, they slide into the back seats of shining, chauffeured SUVs. On summer nights, they gather to drink wine and commiserate in outdoor restaurants, guarded by rifle-toting men who refuse Afghans entry.

They are the foreign research consultants, security experts, technical advisors and heads of non-governmental aid groups, part of the aid juggernaut that arrived en masse in 2001 to rebuild the shattered country.

Many foreigners – particularly at private development firms – earn six-figure salaries and upward. Over the last decade, they’ve helped dole out the roughly US$57-billion in aid that poured into the country. About $2-billion came from Canada.

But what did the billions accomplish?

A great deal, Canadian officials say, a view that is shared by thousands of Afghans from Kandahar to Kabul.

In the early years, Canada steered its aid money to Afghan-led initiatives that focused on education, rural rehabilitation and health care. It poured nearly $500-million into the Afghan Reconstruction Trust Fund, a pool of money funded by 30 donor countries and administered by the World Bank. The fund pays Afghan government salaries, funds national health and education programs, and bolsters ministry budgets.

Other Canadian programs built schools, trained health-care workers, paid for mentors to advise Afghan civil servants and helped small businesses get off the ground.

With Canadian help, businessman Farhad Saafi is running a factory in Kabul with 700 workers.

“We stepped up to the plate,” said Bob Johnston, head of the Afghanistan task force for the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

“Did we solve Afghanistan? Probably not. Did we help in that sort of international effort … to help stabilize it? Yes. Have we improved the life of the average Afghan? Definitely yes.”

But there were failures too. Political interference, shifting priorities and a failure to vet some dubious projects undermined some programs.

Some of the newly built schools and medical clinics crumbled because of shoddy construction. Others sat empty because there was no staff. There was duplication of services in some populated regions and nothing in vast tracts of the countryside. Afghans complained donors didn’t ask them what they needed and forged ahead with their own agendas.

Canadian officials pulled the plug on some programs, including a radio station network that was to be run by rural women. It turned out the idea was better on paper than in real life.

An evaluator who checked up on the $3-million program said its finances were a mess, its equipment shoddy, and it never formed a plan to generate revenue, as promised.

Corruption flourished. Lucrative reconstruction projects went almost exclusively to international contractors, who subcontracted the work to local firms, making it nearly impossible to track if the money was spent as intended.

Meanwhile, multi-coloured mansions owned by newly wealthy Afghan contractors sprang up in the heart of Kabul, displacing locals who retreated up the dust-caked mountains that ring the city. A building boom fuelled by the onslaught of foreign actors sent real estate prices soaring.

For millions of Afghans, little changed. Many say the billions should have yielded more. They had hoped their own government would be in a position by now to provide basic goods and services. They wanted a fair justice system, basic infrastructure and the foundations for economic development.

Despite strides in education and health care, Afghanistan remains one of the poorest countries on earth, with an average life expectancy of 45 years. Nearly 80% of the population is illiterate and its Western-backed government is among the world’s most corrupt.

Canadian officials say they had hoped Afghanistan would have progressed faster. Increasingly, they talk of taking a longer view.

“One of the things we have all learned is that …. rebuilding a state takes a long, long time,” Mr. Johnston said. “Security has been disappointing, governance has been disappointing.”

Impatient Westerners tend to overlook the near-medieval conditions in Afghanistan after 9/11. After two decades of war, it had no banking system, there were a few religious schools and a largely illiterate population.

“In the beginning, this was the most … backward part of the world, you have to remember that,” Mr. Johnston said.

“There were no girls in school. There were huge endemic health problems like polio. So, is it better? Yes. Is it good enough? No.”

People on the ground agree. Lauryn Oates, 29, from Vancouver, has spent a good part of her adult working life in Afghanistan, battling the corrupt and the powerful in an effort to educate women. But she fears for the future.

Canadians helped Ehsanullah Ehsan make his dream come true of running a school. But he wonders if it can survive.

Canada’s aid efforts were also marked by abrupt shifts in political priorities.

In 2008, after years of funneling money into Afghanistan’s national programs, it switched gears and announced half its aid money would go to Kandahar. It zeroed in on three signature projects: rebuilding the Dahla Dam; constructing 50 schools; and a polio vaccination program.

Completion of the $50-million dam is on schedule, despite earlier setbacks with security, Canadian officials say. The dam, which was built in the 1950s by the United States, will help irrigate thousands of hectares of farmers’ fields in the Arghandab Valley, west of Kandahar City.

Meanwhile, polio eradication efforts have been largely successful nationwide, although they have proved more difficult in the more dangerous south.

CIDA officials say the construction and renovation of 50 schools in Kandahar is on track, but there have been coordination problems with local education officials.

The combined price tag was more than $200-million. Proponents saw it as a way to put our stamp on the province where Canada invested so much time and money, and 157 Canadians were killed.

Critics, including many puzzled Afghans, said it was foolhardy to undertake ambitious big-ticket projects in a dangerous province where Canada’s military would pull up stakes by mid-2011.

“Why did we even sign on to the signature projects?” asked a Canadian consultant, who conducted outside evaluations on CIDA projects.

“You can’t build in a war zone. We drained money from valuable national projects so we could fly the flag over three projects.”

But Mr. Johnston said most of the work on the signature projects was finished, or would be by the end of 2011.

“We proved it was doable, not perfect,” he said.

Today, nearly 10 years after the U.S. drove the Taliban from power, many Afghans say they are afraid the international community is losing interest in rebuilding their country. The United States is poised to withdraw its troops in 2014 and Canadian soldiers left Kandahar last summer.

Mr. Johnston said Canada isn’t giving up on Afghanistan. About $300-million in aid has been earmarked for the next three years, but that’s a fraction of the roughly $200-million annual aid package it’s been sending in recent years.

Some young Afghans have given up hope their country will change for their better in their lifetime.

“My life, it’s over,” said Shuja Momuzai, 30, a contractor who was among the millions of exiles who returned from Pakistan after 2001, brimming with hope.

Instead, he bounced from job to job, working short-term contracts for foreigners. Today, he’s pinning all his hopes on his three-year-old son.

“If he can go to school and get a good job, that’s all I’m living for now.”